Thousands of injuries have happened due to treadmills, here’s how to use them safely

People get injured by treadmills more than any other piece of exercise equipment and with it, more than 22,000 treadmill injuries have to face hospital emergency rooms in 2019.

Injuries that we can face with treadmills include slips, sprains, and strains along with that treadmills can also cause serious burns, concussions, broken bones and we can even die. Every kind of risk is concerned with the treadmills because they are digital machines, added Clark Stevenson, owner of the treadmill doctor.

Not only users are affected by these dangers but children and pets are also affected by these treadmill injuries during home base use. In April 2021, the CPSC issued a warning to treadmill users, advising them to stop using the Peloton Tread machine after a child became trapped underneath one and subsequently died.

Dana Noffsinger knows the risks of treadmills that can harm children. A nurse at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus studied treadmills that burned the children who were admitted to the hospital. A study in 2017 found that burns with treadmills were more dangerous than burns from touching a hot stovetop according to a paper published in the Journal of Burn Care & Research.

Burn occurs when a child places his hand on a moving treadmill and it gets trapped as it continues to run.

Noffsinger said these treadmills were deeply rooted and difficult to get rid of, hindering the healing process, and many of us are stuck in them. She further said that we had checked patients with deep enough injuries in which even we could see their bones and tendons which we could not be able to see with other injuries. 

Make sure that the outfit and shoes you have worn are well-fitting for exercise.  Warm yourself with stretches and motion exercises before going on the machine the next is to step on the machine and pin up the safety key to your shirt. Safety key will help you in difficult situations especially when you will be at risk of falling off from the treadmill. The safety key will abruptly turn off the machine. 

The next step you have to do is to turn on the treadmill at a very slow speed. According to the Stevenson recommendation 1 mile per hour which is approximately 1.6 kilometers per hour. Indulge yourself in belt movement after getting your bearings then step on and slowly without changing the speed further. When you are done with your workout make sure that your treadmill is turned off and it has stopped working before stepping off the foot on the floor.

When you are using a treadmill for home use then make sure one thing that a lot of cleanliness is just behind the machine according to Stevenson. You’ll have to need a safe area to land to save yourself from falling off. According to many manufacturers, you need only a three to four feet clearance area but Stevenson’s recommendation is 6 feet which is 1.8 meters.